DOI Heft:
No. 159 (June, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Williams, Leonard: The portrait-work of Joaquin Sorolla
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0051
The Portrait Work of Joaquin Sorolla
him. She is entrusting him to Spain : nor has she
any cause to doubt her confidence. Motherhood
and pride are in her look, as well as royal dignity.
She has fulfilled an arduous trust towards the
people whom she ruled and guided loyally and
ably, meriting the world’s applause beside. The
lions at her feet seem emblematic of the chival-
rous and loyal race that have, as these deserved,
defended and upheld the royal lady and her
royal son.
I passed herefrom to contemplate the portraits
of two Spanish countesses; both dark, both
beautiful—yet of conflicting styles of Spanish
beauty. The Countess of San Felix, a splendidly
proportioned brunette, is a not infrequent type of
Spanish charm, with well-modelled bust, deep
hazel eyes (not black), long, drooping lashes, jet-
black hair, and decided eyebrows, not too accurately
arched. The Countess of Casal, on the other
hand, is not the national type of Spanish beauty,
but just the typical beauty of Madrid. This lady
is a daughter of the capital of Spain, whose
delicate features respire a double aristocracy—that
of family and that of race. Here in Madrid, a
town of towns for lovely and seductive women,
such faces may be counted by the thousand—the
colour of the clearest yet extremely pale, the hand
and foot of Arab smallness, the eloquent dark eye
that serves (at least in this case) as the window for
a sensitive and noble character.
Then I came to a portrait of his wife. Here the
face and glance detach themselves with lightning
swiftness. She wears a soft black gown, treated
somewhat flatly, a single yellow rose about the
girdle; grey, black, pale yellow, and vermilion
for the chair—there are no shades and colours
other than these four. The portrait of the parents
of this lady has a tranquillizing influence after hers.
A look of harmless vanity is on the faces of the
healthy and contented pair—the look of people
who are pardonably glad at having their portraits
painted—and by such a painter.
Antonio Gomar is a landscape-painter, in the
spirit and the flesh—a cheerful, oldish man, yet
refusing to be old. He pauses in the middle of a
cigarette and in the middle of a humorous idea or
“MY wife’s PARENTS” by JOAQUIN SOROLLA
3°
him. She is entrusting him to Spain : nor has she
any cause to doubt her confidence. Motherhood
and pride are in her look, as well as royal dignity.
She has fulfilled an arduous trust towards the
people whom she ruled and guided loyally and
ably, meriting the world’s applause beside. The
lions at her feet seem emblematic of the chival-
rous and loyal race that have, as these deserved,
defended and upheld the royal lady and her
royal son.
I passed herefrom to contemplate the portraits
of two Spanish countesses; both dark, both
beautiful—yet of conflicting styles of Spanish
beauty. The Countess of San Felix, a splendidly
proportioned brunette, is a not infrequent type of
Spanish charm, with well-modelled bust, deep
hazel eyes (not black), long, drooping lashes, jet-
black hair, and decided eyebrows, not too accurately
arched. The Countess of Casal, on the other
hand, is not the national type of Spanish beauty,
but just the typical beauty of Madrid. This lady
is a daughter of the capital of Spain, whose
delicate features respire a double aristocracy—that
of family and that of race. Here in Madrid, a
town of towns for lovely and seductive women,
such faces may be counted by the thousand—the
colour of the clearest yet extremely pale, the hand
and foot of Arab smallness, the eloquent dark eye
that serves (at least in this case) as the window for
a sensitive and noble character.
Then I came to a portrait of his wife. Here the
face and glance detach themselves with lightning
swiftness. She wears a soft black gown, treated
somewhat flatly, a single yellow rose about the
girdle; grey, black, pale yellow, and vermilion
for the chair—there are no shades and colours
other than these four. The portrait of the parents
of this lady has a tranquillizing influence after hers.
A look of harmless vanity is on the faces of the
healthy and contented pair—the look of people
who are pardonably glad at having their portraits
painted—and by such a painter.
Antonio Gomar is a landscape-painter, in the
spirit and the flesh—a cheerful, oldish man, yet
refusing to be old. He pauses in the middle of a
cigarette and in the middle of a humorous idea or
“MY wife’s PARENTS” by JOAQUIN SOROLLA
3°